What if there was more than one origin of life?

[apollosdtr]

It's quite possible that there is - or was - more than one origin of life. It's not a novel idea and has been considered in-depth with regard to life on Earth and elsewhere in the universe. But as far as we can tell, only life from one origin has survived on Earth. We can't say whether life has emerged elsewhere in the universe.

What do you do with Cro-Magons and Neanderthals? Where on planet Earth did this "one origin" of yours began?

 

[apollosdtr]

I've seen arbitrary skepticism of the Bible before, but this is the first time I've seen someone deny that the ancient Israelis could make something out of brass...

If Judah made brass, why did they need Hiram?

 

[SelfSim]

What do you do with Cro-Magons and Neanderthals? Where on planet Earth did this "one origin" of yours began?

The paper lays out their views on this aspect quite clearly.
Their generalised definition of life (based on a multi-layered model using generalised physical processes), leads them towards the following line of argument:

i) there may be many origins of different types of life along an evolutionary trajectory;
ii) this approach suggests that contrary to the wide-spread belief that life has a single chemical origin and basis (history-centric), life has in fact evolved many times on Earth;
iii) some trajectories may even transition from living to non-living optimized states before giving rise to life again;
iv) biological life at the biochemical level might have a unique provenance, but higher level aggregations with emergent living features do not;
v) This forces one to distinguish between the idea of an origin and the fact of a first occurrence:
So then:

This relates very naturally to the evolutionary concepts of analogy and homology. Life itself is typically considered ancestral to all of biology and thereby the ultimate homology, whereas we argue somewhat counter-intuitively that life should be thought of as analogous, or more technically as homoplastic—a set of traits that have been gained or lost independently in separate lineages over the course of evolution. Life should be thought of as a special class of convergent evolution. The multiple origins of life on Earth happen to have a common historical trajectory in LUCA. As has been noted (Walker 2020), if new life were created in a computer or in a laboratory, those specific substrates are setup by humans and create a causal link with LUCA.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

What do you do with Cro-Magons and Neanderthals? Where on planet Earth did this "one origin" of yours began?

You'll have to explain what you mean by "What do you do with Cro-Magons and Neanderthals" - I don't do anything with them, Neanderthals are extinct hominins, of genus Homo, and Cro-Magnons were early European modern humans, both are now long dead.

No-one knows where on Earth life began, but liquid water and available free energy (e.g. heat gradients) would be necessary.

 

[Astrid]

What do you do with Cro-Magons and Neanderthals? Where on planet Earth did this "one origin" of yours began?

This seems like a very strange question that kind of makes no sense.
Could you explain why you are asking, what you have in mind?

 

[essentialsaltes]

This seems like a very strange question that kind of makes no sense.
Could you explain why you are asking, what you have in mind?

He seems to be harking back to the Agassiz essay he linked to in post #4. The idea that the different races of men were specially created in different parts of the earth.

 

[Astrid]

He seems to be harking back to the Agassiz essay he linked to in post #4. The idea that the different races of men were specially created in different parts of the earth.

Ah so desu ka

 

[SelfSim]

No-one knows where on Earth life began, but liquid water and available free energy (e.g. heat gradients) would be necessary.

So, as far as our example of life goes, I think liquid water would map into their 'L1 - materials possibilities' level, and available free energy would map into their 'L2 - Physical constraints'(?)

Where that occurred is moot anyway, (and irrelevant as far as the purposes of the OP), I think.

In their own words:

The most illustrative examples of this hierarchy are the connections between L1 and L2. For example, life harnesses many energetic gradients for useful anabolism via many L1 mechanisms. But all of these conform to the laws of thermodynamics and no cell will be found to contain more internal structure than can be accounted for by the total free energy available from the environment (Schrodinger 1944; Morowitz 1955). This result is well-known and illustrates a general L2 principle, in this case the laws of thermodynamics, realized on many L1 instances.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

So, as far as our example of life goes, I think liquid water would map into their 'L1 - materials possibilities' level, and available free energy would map into their 'L2 - Physical constraints'(?)

Where that occurred is moot anyway, (and irrelevant as far as the purposes of the OP), I think.

Yes; in particular, I was referring to life 'as we know it', rather than other, as yet speculative, possibilities.

 

[apollosdtr]

What do you do with Cro-Magons and Neanderthals? Where on planet Earth did this "one origin" of yours began?

I don't do anything with them, Neanderthals are extinct hominins, of genus Homo, and Cro-Magnons were early European modern humans, both are now long dead.

"The Paglicci 23 individual carried a mtDNA sequence that is still common in Europe, and which radically differs from those of the almost contemporary Neandertals, demonstrating a genealogical continuity across 28,000 years, from Cro-Magnoid to modern Europeans."
A 28,000 Years Old Cro-Magnon mtDNA Sequence Differs from All Potentially Contaminating Modern Sequences

Neanderthals live on in DNA of humans

This seems like a very strange question that kind of makes no sense.
Could you explain why you are asking, what you have in mind?

The OP: "life probably originated multiple times, in different ways. It is possible that new features showed up in different life-forms that were unrelated, and neither may have even known the other existed."

Why do some people get the idea that life began in the middle east?
But other people show that modern man comes from France?
Was Cain's wife so unimportant that her history never shows up in the Bible?

 

[apollosdtr]

The paper lays out their views on this aspect quite clearly.
Their generalised definition of life (based on a multi-layered model using generalised physical processes), leads them towards the following line of argument:

i) there may be many origins of different types of life along an evolutionary trajectory;
ii) this approach suggests that contrary to the wide-spread belief that life has a single chemical origin and basis (history-centric), life has in fact evolved many times on Earth;
iii) some trajectories may even transition from living to non-living optimized states before giving rise to life again;
iv) biological life at the biochemical level might have a unique provenance, but higher level aggregations with emergent living features do not;
v) This forces one to distinguish between the idea of an origin and the fact of a first occurrence:
So then:

So then, Creation and Evolution have a lot in common, do they?

Since Creation says Adam is one man and one woman... either a multitude of miracles took place for a very long time... or Creation has Evolution built into it. Personally, I don't believe either one is possible, given the timeframe of the Bible, plus the different peoples on planet Earth... which, as shown by Egyptian monuments, could pass for the very same 4-5 races today... and the fact is that we don't really see this evolution taking place... or have I missed the finding of several missing links?

Europe is filled with artifacts and ancient bones that show us what people lived there... one of them, indigenous for 28,000 years. Cro-Magnon burials are seen in Liguria... and in Wales' Paviland cave, Aurignacian stations. These people are what owned the lands beyond the tin isles that caught the interest of Avienus, who says Ligurians lived there until the Celts took their land... which even Cunliffe quotes. Celts are round-heads, while the first men in Britain are always shown to be long-heads... Cro-Magnon type, in fact. And as far back as 1965, the same people whom Dawkins "Cave Hunting" noticed, were still working the mines, according to that survey of the blood types of the miners. But managers of the mines were the Celtic type. So type really doesn't change as much as people wish it did.

Which begs the question... just how many times and how many different places did God plant these different peoples? as well as the diverse plants and animals which go into making up each ecozone.

 

[SelfSim]

So then, Creation and Evolution have a lot in common, do they?

Nope. One is based on objective evidence, ie: Evolution .. and the other is based on beliefs, ie: Creation.

Since Creation says Adam is one man and one woman... either a multitude of miracles took place for a very long time... or Creation has Evolution built into it. Personally, I don't believe either one is possible, given the timeframe of the Bible, plus the different peoples on planet Earth... which, as shown by Egyptian monuments, could pass for the very same 4-5 races today... and the fact is that we don't really see this evolution taking place... or have I missed the finding of several missing links?

'Races'? I don't know have a clue what that has to do with Evolution?

Europe is filled with artifacts and ancient bones that show us what people lived there... one of them, indigenous for 28,000 years. Cro-Magnon burials are seen in Liguria... and in Wales' Paviland cave, Aurignacian stations. These people are what owned the lands beyond the tin isles that caught the interest of Avienus, who says Ligurians lived there until the Celts took their land... which even Cunliffe quotes. Celts are round-heads, while the first men in Britain are always shown to be long-heads... Cro-Magnon type, in fact. And as far back as 1965, the same people whom Dawkins "Cave Hunting" noticed, were still working the mines, according to that survey of the blood types of the miners. But managers of the mines were the Celtic type. So type really doesn't change as much as people wish it did.

Which begs the question... just how many times and how many different places did God plant these different peoples? as well as the diverse plants and animals which go into making up each ecozone.

'God' is irrelevant here .. and the answer to the question is easy: As many as the evidenced record shows.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

"The Paglicci 23 individual carried a mtDNA sequence that is still common in Europe, and which radically differs from those of the almost contemporary Neandertals, demonstrating a genealogical continuity across 28,000 years, from Cro-Magnoid to modern Europeans."
A 28,000 Years Old Cro-Magnon mtDNA Sequence Differs from All Potentially Contaminating Modern Sequences

Neanderthals live on in DNA of humans

Yes; there were different subspecies of Homo around at that time - and they interbred. What is your point?

Why do some people get the idea that life began in the middle east?
But other people show that modern man comes from France?

You'd have to ask them. Neither represents the expert consensus in the relevant fields. We don't know where life began, and the earliest evidence of modern man is from Africa.